


Want and Need

by riventhorn



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling, M/M, Slight D/s Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 05:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He should push Em far away, transfer him, get him out of Whitechapel, but he couldn’t do it, not when it would devastate Em, not when he would ache after the quiet way he had of saying “sir,” followed by a tentative smile</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want and Need

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Series 4 and contains references to events in those episodes. Sorry for any Americanisms!

Chandler feared that their relationship tended to stray into the “unhealthy” side of the spectrum. It indulged their individual psychoses too much—his need for absolute control, Kent’s investment in his approval. With—well, with Morgan (he could think her name in his own head, for God’s sake), she had pushed him to find different solutions, to not just accept things as unchangeable. Em accommodated him, strove to match his own behavior to Joe’s preferences, all for the purpose of being praised and appreciated. (And because he loved him—Joe knew that, knew that Em wanted to make him happy). 

Not that Joe thought he was a terrible influence in all respects. Em was a much better detective now, much more professional and attentive to detail. Miles had even admitted as much one night in the pub after a few drinks. 

But Em shouldn’t need his approval so desperately, should he? Weren’t people supposed to have enough self-respect that their happiness didn’t hinge on one person giving them a kind word or two? Joe didn’t know—he had always been painfully aware of his own shortcomings, and the one man whose approval he wanted had drowned himself in a bathtub, so it wasn’t as though he knew if that approval would make a difference or not (and he wasn’t going to visit a medium again, no matter what that woman had written down—and wasn’t it like his father to be concerned about the _case_ , about Joe’s _reputation_ —but no, no it hadn’t been his father, he wouldn’t believe that, wouldn’t give in to superstition). 

At any rate, Joe didn’t know for sure, but he had a feeling that it couldn’t be healthy for Em, and yet he also couldn’t seem to put a stop to it, not when Em smiled at him like that and seemed so happy. 

They had agreed right from the start that there would never be any punishment. The very thought made Joe ill. He could never have inflicted any kind of physical pain on Em. They saw enough suffering in their cases (dear God, so much—and why? Why did death seem to follow him, all the night terrors dogging his footsteps through Whitechapel?). Besides, he couldn’t stop being Em’s DI and that meant orders and stern commands and yes, anger when a case got rough and everyone’s tempers frayed at the edges. He knew all that hurt Em, even if it couldn’t be helped, and so in this—in _this_ he only wanted gentleness and tenderness, even if sometimes it was hard, when Em didn’t get things quite right. But he wanted to get it right, and that was all that mattered.

They never left the station together. That wouldn’t be correct, wouldn’t fit the pattern. They weren’t about standing together on the doorstep to Joe’s flat, fumbling for the keys and juggling coffee while joking about the day. No—no, Em always needed to get there first (Joe had given him the spare key, and Em’s fingers sometimes played with it during the day, fiddling with it on its ring) while Joe stopped off at the shops to pick up something for dinner. By the time he reached his flat, Em would be showered and changed into a soft, grey cotton T-shirt and sweats, feet bare or in black socks (nothing as blatant as a leather collar—Joe would have died of embarrassment even if Em would have submitted to having it fastened around his neck). Em would be sitting on the sofa, waiting, legs crossed, and Joe would go over to him and kiss his forehead and smooth his hands down Em’s arms.

Em would smile, his eyes fixed on Joe’s face. 

“Fancy fish for dinner?” Joe would murmur (or something of the kind—although he would never feed Em pizza, even though he knew Em liked it and was always nicking a piece when Mansell had ordered some. No, he would make sure that Em was healthy in this at least, make sure that he had a decent meal after a long day. Em was thin enough as it was, and the strain of it all wore a person down—it was wearing them all down, wasn’t it? Ed had nightmares now that came from his own real, personal experience, not a dusty archive, and he was just one example of someone that Joe had almost destroyed, and what had he been thinking, bringing Ed deeper into all of this? He should push Em far away, transfer him, get him out of Whitechapel, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t do it, not when it would devastate Em, not when he would ache after Em’s hazel eyes and the quiet way he had of saying “sir,” followed up by a tentative smile).

Tonight it was chicken and pasta with a light sauce. Joe did all the cooking—he’d had to learn, after his mother spiraled into hysteria and depression—and besides, he didn’t trust Em with his Le Creuset cookware. 

“Set the table,” he told Em, who did so, placing everything properly—napkins half an inch to the left of the plate, wine glass forming the apex of a triangle between spoon and plate. 

“That’s lovely,” Joe told him with a smile when it was done, and Em beamed, shy suddenly, ducking his head, and Joe took his hand for a moment until it was time to drain the pasta. 

They didn’t exactly carry on a conversation at dinner, rather, Joe asked Em how he was doing, and Em, after a few hesitant moments in which he needed encouraging nods, proceeded to discuss all the bits and details of his life—how his mother kept nagging him for a visit even though she never liked his company once he was there, and how Erica wanted him to come out to dinner with her and Mansell, and he didn’t want to, didn’t want to listen to them talking about sex and enduring their teasing and Mansell’s habit of slurping his soup so damn noisily, and how he had discovered a new band, sort of like the one he had told Joe about last week, but whose lyrics were really superior, really something different, and how the girl at his usual coffee shop had been so rude and fixed his drink wrong and then told him that he was the one who had been mistaken. 

It was all the things that Em had no one else to tell about, and Joe soaked it in because no one had ever talked to him like that, like they trusted him so much that they could speak about anything, from the most banal to the most significant of topics. Best of all was that Em didn’t expect or need him to respond beyond murmurs of sympathy or amusement, as the occasion warranted. It was enough that Joe was there, listening and not teasing or arguing about any of it.

After dinner, they cleaned up together (Joe would accept help but couldn’t face leaving the matter entirely in someone else’s hands). Then Em made tea while he went and sat on the couch. Em always made the tea just as he liked it, and Joe said, “Thank you, Em; it’s perfect.”

Em smiled and leaned against him, their shoulders just touching. 

“Have a biscuit if you want,” Joe told him, even though the thought of crumbs in between the couch cushions made him cringe inwardly.

“That’s all right,” Em murmured, because he knew this. Instead, he rested his head on Joe’s shoulder and peeked at the book that Joe was reading (one of Ed’s recommendations because Joe couldn’t leave it behind, couldn’t keep it out of the house like Miles did). 

After a bit, when Em had finished his tea, he slid down so that he could rest his head in Joe’s lap. Joe rested his hand on his head and stroked, brushing over Em’s wiry, hard-to-tame curls, dropping lower to rub his thumb against Em’s neck.

Em—well, there was no other word for it except melted—Em melted into the touch, little sighs of contentment drifting upwards to catch Joe’s ears. This was the moment when, if they were working a tough case, Joe would tell Em how well he was doing and how proud he was of him. Em’s smile was always so beautiful, and it eased something within him, to know that he was capable of creating such beauty, of giving another person such happiness. 

Often Em fell asleep, and Joe would gently wake him up when it was time for bed, loving the way that Em burrowed closer to him, resisting a moment before sitting up sleepily and leaning against Joe, drowsily asking for a kiss. Em’s mouth always felt so pliant under his. 

In the bedroom, he told Em to turn down the covers and wait for him. He always took a long time getting ready for bed, washing carefully, a lengthy routine to follow that sluiced away the reminders of death and failure (as much as they could ever be forgotten) and left him prepared to face another day. 

Em always waited for him, for Joe to settle onto the mattress beside him so that he could whisper, “Good night.” Joe liked his own space in bed, the covers just so, and Em obeyed the unvoiced rule and didn’t try to cuddle or latch onto him. Only in the morning did Joe sometimes draw closer, befuddled enough with sleep to overcome the strangeness and the uncomfortable feeling of touching so much of another person’s skin. He had stroked Em to an orgasm a few times, and Em had done the same for him. They would never go beyond that—oral sex disgusted him, and he positively shuddered at the idea of anal intercourse. Em knew this and either felt the same way or didn’t mind (Joe had never worked up the courage to ask him directly, wasn’t willing to risk disturbing the equilibrium they had found). Sometimes, though, on bad nights—and they all had those—Em’s hand would find his and their fingers would wind together, holding tightly.

“Good night, Em,” he replied and listened to Em’s breathing deepen into sleep. Only then could he find his own rest, needing to know that Em was all right and not too tense or afraid to fall asleep. It was these times that he thought perhaps this coexistence between them was not such a bad thing after all. Perhaps in looking out for Em, in giving in to the pleading in Em’s eyes for affection and attention, he was in fact learning how to see beyond himself, to leave behind all the demons that troubled him, if only for a moment.


End file.
